


Surviving the Storm

by RedStarFiction



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 09:37:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11101839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedStarFiction/pseuds/RedStarFiction
Summary: Dear Han,I think there is a couple of “missing scenes” in the books, meaning that something crucial occures off-page. The two which lack sort of killed me is a conversation between Brianna and Jamie about William in “A Breath of Snow and Ashes” and reunion/mutual forgiveness between the father and daughter in “Drums of Autumn”. Since you have already written the former beautifully in “There is two of us now” (albeit in alternative universe), I would love to read your take on the latter. I mean, so many horrible things had been said by both of them, but no reconciliation? Hugs.





	Surviving the Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maruszka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maruszka/gifts).



> I don’t have my copy of DoA at the moment and haven't actually read it in about 8 years so my memory of Bree and Jamie fighting is sketchy. One scene I do remember is Jamie trying to prove to Bree that the rape is not her fault by physically over-powering her himself. Now this is going to be controversial, but personally it is one of the moments in the series where I flinched like, “Oh God! Jamie! Don’t do that!” I can’t remember how DG had that particular moment resolve itself. So here is my take on it. As with any fics surrounding the various rapes in the Outlander series, this fic comes with a potential *trigger warning*. Much love, Han xx

Despite the cold of the water, Jamie could still feel the press of her fingers against his arm. He closed his eyes lightly, shutting out the gurgling brook and the swish of pine branches overhead, and forced himself to hear again her grunts and struggles, and then her gasp of pain as the cold, brutal logic that overcame his own misgivings as he forced her down, her wrist bend to breaking behind her back.

Had it been Marsali or even Jenny, he could have stopped there, with her on her knees before him. They would have understood their position, would have accepted their blamelessness, but not Brianna. Not his daughter. She was trying to claw his bollocks off or bite his arm to the bone even then, even as he overpowered her and crushed the air from her lungs. She would not believe the rape was not her fault unless he proved it to her without a doubt.

As he had leant forward to touch her knee, thigh, elbow he had felt the red heat and salty wetness on her cheeks, fury and tears combined as she accepted his truth, all the while hating him with every fibre of her being.

“Could ye stop me, Brianna?”

That was the question he had asked and she had yielded as he knew she must. He had released her then and she stood, flushed with anger and with tears still falling over the high-cheekbones she had inherited from him, along with her stubborn pride.

For all that she was braw and fierce and brave she was a young woman in a strange land, recovering from an assault with him as her only protection and she was struggling with the reality of it all. Brianna was, Jamie realised with a jolt, in a similar situation to that which Claire had found herself all those years ago when they first met, and just as he had with Claire, when reason had failed Jamie had used his physical size to drive the lesson home. He wondered, with a small stab of jealousy, exactly how Frank might have dealt with it differently before pushing the thought from his mind. He was not the same man as Frank and he needed to find his own way with Brianna.

Her wrath afterwards had been understandable but had burned him like a thousand embers just the same. Each insult branded him but still worse had been the look in her eyes as she faced him. He understood it, embraced it even for if she was still capable of such anger toward him then she could still love him, but even if she did not, then he did not regret his actions if they lead his daughter to some small hamlet of peace in the knowledge that the rape had not been her fault.

A sudden movement startled him and Jamie jerked backwards from the creek bed, narrowly avoiding falling. Brianna was stood a few feet away but he had not heard her footsteps nor noticed her arrival, the movement had merely been the sweep of her hair gathered on the wind. She was wearing a simple dress, the dull brown bringing out the flame of her hair, the short sleeves revealing goose-bumps up her slender arms.

“It’s cold, lass ...”  
Jamie shrugged off his coat and held it out to her but Bree made no move to take it.

Bree moved instead to stand before him, the thick wet grass squelching slightly under her weight. She was looking at him with an expression that Jamie could not quite read; distaste certainly, anger of course but something else too.

“I don’t need your coat. I came to find you to … to tell you that you hurt me because I thought you should know, even if you don’t care.”

Brianna swallowed and looked out across the brook, the water got steadily shallower the further up she looked and at the bend, pebbles of charcoal grey and vibrant terracotta glinted in the sunlight as the trickle of water washed over them.

Jamie nodded and clasped his hands around his knees so that she would not notice them shaking.  
“I ken that I did and o’ course I care. But had I not done so Brianna, ye would never have accepted that ye were powerless against that man. That it was not your fault.”

Jamie waited for her to speak but she only watched him with that same unfathomable expression until finally Jamie decided to break the silence.

“If ye have come for an apology, ye may have one. I didna mean to seem cruel in neither what I said nor what I did...”

“But it was cruel! You might have had decent intentions but it was cruel!”  
Brianna trembled as wind gusted around them, throwing spray from the creek up the back of her leg that she barely noticed.  
“What if I had lost the baby?”

Jamie’s head snapped up, his mouth open with shock.  
“I … Ye ...”

Brianna cut him off, her anger was controlled now but she was no less furious with him and the fear she had felt under his hand was something she desperately wanted him to understand.

“You threw me to the ground and bent my neck to breaking. You jabbed my back and stopped me from breathing. I know you were trying to … to prove a point … and it worked. I accept that I was helpless...”

She broke off and took a steadying breath through her nose as Jamie stepped forwards and reached to gather her into his arms. Bree put a hand out and Jamie froze, he would not touch her against her will.

“I just want you to understand that you frightened me and … Roger isn’t here and … I don’t have anyone else to act as the protector you all keep telling me I need. I have you, that’s it. You were my protector and you hurt me … you could have hurt the baby...”

Bree’s breath was coming up in sobbing gasps and her composure was slipping by the second but still her hand wavered in the air between them, keeping him at bay.

“I AM your protector Brianna, ye are my daughter, blood of my blood ...”

“That doesn’t fucking mean anything! Daddy wasn’t of my blood but he would never … You can’t just … just …”

Bree shook her head and dashed a hand angrily across her eyes before slowly crossing her arms over her middle and folding in on herself, head bowed against the wind. Jamie took a deep breath of his own. His throat was burning and his eyes misted but he blinked rapidly and cleared them, he would have time for his feelings later, his daughter had need of him now.

“May I hold ye, Brianna? I’ll no touch ye without your word but if ye will allow me ...”

Bree nodded, curtly, once. It was a small movement, almost begrudging but it was all the invitation Jamie needed. He gathered her to his chest and cradled her lightly as though she would shatter under the slightest pressure.

“I will always protect ye, Graidh, with my very life should ye need it. I would never see any harm come to you or this child.”

Bree shivered against him, fistfuls of his shirt balled into her hands, absorbing his warmth, the size and strength of him as reassuring as it had been so briefly but thoroughly terrifying.

“You can’t ever do something like that again, Da. It was horrible.”

Jamie felt the tiny swell of her belly pressed against his and closed his eyes in a silent prayer of thanks for the small life contained within whilst swallowing the thick wave of bile that rose in his throat at the thought of his actions causing any injury to either of them.

He stepped back, carefully smoothing her hair back from her face whilst keeping his daughter in the shelter of his embrace.  
“You have come from a … a more gentle place perhaps but I dinna doubt that violence is something that will have existed in your time. Ye must ken and accept your limitations so that ye may enhance your strengths, and ye have many, many strengths,.”

Jamie kissed her brow lightly and smoothed away the tracks of her tears with his thumb  
“But for all that, I wish ye to ken that I am truly sorry for the way I proved it, Brianna. I should have found a better way.”

Brianna was no longer crying but her breath hitched occasionally and she seemed to be having trouble meeting his eye through the crush of her emotions and Jamie was suddenly seized with fear that he had irreparably broken the fragile bond that had been developing between them. 

“Can ye forgive me, mo nighean? I will beg ye on my knees should ye wish it to be so.”

Bree shook her head and sniffed heavily, lifting her face to him.

“I do forgive you.”

“Thank you.”  
Jamie said quietly. 

Bree nodded and sniffed again, smiling as Jamie dug into the pocket of his breeks and came up with a clean but crumbled handkerchief. She mopped her eyes and handed it to him to do the same before blowing her nose mightily, the noise of it making them both laugh and chasing away most of the remaining unease between them.

“I’m sorry for the things I said, the names I called you...”

“Och! I’ve been called worse and for far less.”  
Jamie waved away her apology and gently draped his coat around her shoulders before wrapping his arm around her to keep it in place against the breeze.

“What were you doing out here?”  
Bree asked suddenly  
“I was so intent on finding you and yelling at you that I didn’t even think where I was going.”

Jamie smiled lightly  
“Ye tracked me then?”

Bree shrugged  
“Yes, but you made it easy enough. I figured you knew I’d come after you eventually and didn’t want the confrontation at the house with Mama.”

Jamie’s smile widened and he nodded in wry amusement  
“Aye, that was about the sum of it. As for what I was doing, it sounds daft but I find that soaking my hands or feet in a stream sort of … centres my thoughts. If I’m in a temper or some such, ken?”

“No it’s not daft. I do that too. Under a tap though normally, though I guess it will be a stream now.”  
Bree ducked her head, pleased at the small new similarity.  
“Were you in a temper still?”

“Mmmphhm. Aye, well, not with you, but I wasna verra happy wi’ myself, nor with the situation as a whole.”

“Me neither.”  
Bree’s lip quirked upwards and she shrugged, a one shouldered gesture that gave away the truth of her age and made Jamie’s heart ache with tenderness. 

“Brianna, you and I are still coming to know each other, there are things about me that ye willna like and perhaps things about you that I willna understand,”  
Jamie paused to make sure that she was listening and finding her watching him, continued in slow, even tones  
“The life I have lived has perhaps made me harder than I would wish to be and I dinna have much experience of being a father but … ken that if I do or say a thing that ye find abhorrent ye may always tell me such and I will do my best to learn to be the sort of father ye might be proud to have. For you and for the bairn.”

Bree stopped and looked up at him.  
“I am proud of you, for everything you did for me, for the way you are with Mama. I’m glad that we have you.”

“And I am glad to have you mo nighean rudiah. You are my pride and my joy, and I will love you always, no matter what.”

Jamie smiled tenderly as Bree linked her arm through his and they turned toward home, the peace of their new found relationship restored and strengthened.


End file.
